Louisville schedules official meeting with top target Chris Mack

Since before Louisville officially announced that interim coach David Padgett would not be retained, it’s been assumed that
Xavier coach Chris Mack would be the top candidate for the Cardinals head coaching vacancy.

On Thursday, Mack’s candidacy became official when news broke that Louisville had scheduled an official meeting with Mack
to discuss the position.

Jeff Greer of the Louisville Courier-Journal
reported that Mack would visit with Louisville officials this weekend. Interim athletic director Vince Tyra had previously ducked
a question about the veracity of claims that Mack was being considered the top candidate for the job.

The biggest obstacle with Mack, whose No. 1-seeded Xavier Musketeers were upset by Florida State in the Round of 32 last weekend,
will ultimately be that he’s an Xavier alum and was a long-time assistant there before taking the head job. While Louisville
can off Mack a sizable raise from the reported $1.7 million salary he’s earning, they’ve also got significant NCAA and FBI
issues looming.

Missing on Mack would put Louisville in a difficult situation in an underwhelming coaching market. And Louisville is unfortunately
the type of deep-pocketed but flawed opportunity many coaches could be interested in exploiting to earn themselves raises
this offseason.